WB reports on Vietnam’s poverty reduction in 2012
The World Bank (WB) in Vietnam on January 24 released a report on Vietnam’s poverty reduction in 2012 with the theme “2012 Vietnam poverty assessment - Well begun, not yet done: Vietnam's remarkable progress on poverty reduction and the emerging challenges”.
Presenting the report, Dr. Valerie Kozel, senior economic expert at the bank, said Vietnam’s record on economic growth and poverty reduction over the last two decades has been remarkable. The poverty rate fell from 58 percent in the early 1990s to 14.5 percent in 2008 and to below 10 percent by 2010.
In some cases, Vietnam has surpassed many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he noted.
Despite the remarkable progress, the report said, poverty reduction is still not complete yet, and the task is even more difficult in a number of aspects.
Although tens of millions of Vietnamese households have escaped poverty, many have incomes close to the poverty line and remain vulnerable to falling back into poverty as a result of idiosyncratic shocks, such as job loss, accidents, or death or illness of a household member, or related economy-wide shocks, it stressed.
Vietnam’s success has created new challenges, including inequality in incomes and opportunities, persistent ethnic minority poverty, and the gap between rich and poor.
The report was made by the World Bank in cooperation with the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.